plumbago

A year ago when we started Plumbago Magazine, as a paper companion to The Erasable Podcast, we just wanted to get some of our friends to submit drawings, or written words, or something that we could photocopy together into a few pieces of paper, folded and stapled.

Then, last summer, Issue 2 came out, and we suddenly had 36 pages full of writing, illustrations, comics and more about pencils. We made 300 copies, which seemed like a lot, but — wow! — that quickly sold out. (You can still buy a PDF copy of that issue, though.

For Issue 3, due out in January, I really wanted a whole issue dedicated to poetry and fiction. About pencils. I figured it would be slim pickings compared to Issue 2. But was I wrong!

Folks, we have almost 70 pages filled with a dozen short stories, many poems, illustrations, comics, paintings, graphite art, and more!

And yes. Everything’s about pencils. (Or, at least, pencils play a part in the story.)

And we’re making many more copies, so I hope we can keep them in stock for a while.

We’re trying to sell a bunch of copies, yes, but only because — okay, mostly me — am really excited to see this come to fruition. It’s been a labor of love for the last two or three months, and I couldn’t be happier with it.

(And any revenue above and beyond printing, assembly and mailing costs will be donated to Heart to Heart International, a nonprofit providing medical relief to the victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Because we don’t make enough to pay contributors, I don’t want to make a profit myself.)

I’m afraid these won’t be available for Christmas, but my goal is to get orders out the first or second week of January. They’re being printed at a print shop, but the folding, stapling, trimming, and corner-rounding will be done right here in my one-bedroom apartment (Katie is thrilled, let me tell you).

So place your order today. This is your chance to see the creativity and passion that runs through the internet pencil community.

I’m really excited for the second issue of Plumbago, my zine project. If you’ll remember, the first issue came out late last year. It was a bit rushed, since I was trying to produce an issue in time for a Zine Fest at the Facebook Analog Lab.

Turns out, I made far too few copies, and because it was assembled entirely using the photocopier, several features in it were pretty heavily distorted.

This time around, I wanted to produce a higher-quality issue, to see how that felt.

Well, it feels pretty great! Weighing in at 36 pages full of photos, comics, illustrations, and written features, I present Issue #2!

This isn’t a real image of the magazine, so the cover could look totally different than this. Just saying.

Recently, I got the chance to explore a medium I’ve been interested in for a while — zines! The Facebook Analog Lab held a Zinefest last week, raising money for the Oakland Fire Department Relief Fund, helping those affected by the Ghostship warehouse fire.

I’ve been meaning to try to put together a zine for years — ever since my friends Alex Brown and Danee Pye made them for various creative projects. This gave me the perfect chance!

And I knew I wanted it to be about pencils and analog tools of creation. Although it’s a fantastic irony that it’s an analog throwback from blogs and podcasts and whatnot about analog tool, it’s with an authentic love and passion that this came about.

In the late 1500s, residents of Cumbria, England stumbled across a massive tree that was overturned during a storm. The roots brought up soil with it, and beneath it, there was a strange, dark mineral. It felt a lot like a mineral they used at the time — *plumbago*, or dark lead. The used this new mineral to mark their flocks of sheep to identify them in the field.

Zines are a delightful anachronism, though maybe not totally useless. It’s a messy, raw, tactile, finite way to communicate, and in that mess, there’s also a richness to what it’s communicating. Much like pencils.

This issue is 22 pages full of amazing contributors — if you’re dialed into the pencil and stationery community, you might already be familiar with some of them:

The cover features art by Luke Sinclair for his tattoo (and that art, freshly tattooed on his arm, inside